Epic Palace : Knossos Reviews

A+++

It's not the hardest game, but it is quite fun to play.

This is a fun time and resource game. You don't get much chance to slow down, but it's fun getting into the rhythm of harvesting olives/wheat/whatever and creating greater and greater goods. The graphics are very well done and it's got catchy music. The game does feel a bit overpriced, but I like how it prioritizes historical accuracy, so I am on board.

Cool historically accurate resource management game, would recommend, although i am a bit sad about the lack of replayability

The game is decent enough. You get a glimpse into the ancient culture and everything you learn is based on real archaelogy. Is it really worth 15 Euros? I say 10 would be a more reasonable price. You will have seen most of the game after 5 to 10 hours.

The concept of a strategy game centered around decorating a throne room immediately hooked me. So many strategy games let you build empires, but so few let you tangibly see the wealth those empires bring in. I'll preface this review by saying that I would love to see other games featuring structured base decoration like this game has in one form or another. The game itself plays much more like an RTS than most other historical strategy games centered around empire management, and that's fine with me. It's a polished set of mechanics that make the click fest feel fun, even if it is overwhelming for someone like me who shies away from true RTS games. The victory condition centering around sacrificing resources to attain prestige is a clever way to really highlight the culture of Minoan Crete and make the bronze age setting pop. The palace itself feels very important, with expanding the palace and building on production rooms being the only way to access late game techs and items. This is where the decoration of the throne room becomes most prominent; You send out trade ships which return with hauls of randomized loot, including blueprints for building decorations for the throne room which give you prestige that push you towards victory which you can view in a first person mode. Decorating the throne room pauses the game, making it a nice place to take a little break from managing the palace while admiring the fruits of your labor. This all ties the player's want to make the palace look more impressive and to win the game together tightly enough that you always know the value of doing what you are doing, and the game never feels aimless or pointless. The soundtrack is quite nice, and the graphics are good enough to really sell the palace of Knossos as a place worth decorating. Overall, this is a very nice little game, and I'd love to see more of its kind, whether of the same series or of games including the palace decoration mechanic. First person modes in strategy games should be tried more often.

This is not a vast game, but tries to do something very specififc, which it excels at: It simulates the characteristic Palace Economies of Bronze Age Crete, i.e. the Minoan civilisation. There aren't really any other games out there exploring this culture and this ressource juggler is a great window into that fascinating culture. It's obviously a labour of love, quite immersive and polished, I really enjoyed the visuals. It's also quite relaxing, the underlying loop of allocating workers and resources is very enjoyable and seeing your bustling palace progress through ever grander stages is really satisfying. It also works quite well in casual settings. Overall, for what it tries to be, an excellent game.

TL;DR A simple yet entertaining resource management game with around 15-20 hours of replay value and well worth the price if you're looking for a fun management/trading experience. Pros: + Outstanding art direction (some of the best representations of Palatial Minoan society in media, period) + Fun core gameplay loop (2-3 hours/game) + Good visuals & decent, albeit repetitive score + The trading system though not the focus of the game is very enjoyable ('lootboxes' appear after sending ships on trading missions) Neutral: * Limited long-term replayability. There's only 1-2 true 'playstyles' one can undertake in the game * The interface, though effective, has some quirks which take time to get used to * Questionable game mechanics. The resource management & trading systems are nice but the remainder fall to the wayside (diplomacy/war, throneroom) and can be entirely ignored while still achieving victory in a short time * Imbalance is an issue with some events, as certain luxuries can only be obtained via trading and not production, which can lead to scenarios where it's impossible to win in the lategame Cons: - The three provided gamemodes don't vary substantially and have little effect on playstyle, which is disappointing - The game can be truly punishing if you try to deviate from the 'optimal' playstyle (miss a single diplomat from a random city? Now they're sending an army to raze Knossos and you don't have any resources to fight/placate them, good luck lol) - Replayability is locked behind 'Knowledge' points obtained by winning games. These are applied in the main menu and provide a starting bonus to the player's palace. Unfortunately the game provides little indication of where/how these bonuses are used. There's ~12 bonuses to unlock & once they're unlocked they can be chosen indefinitely. The issue is that only a single bonus can be selected for every game and some are SUBSTANTIALLY better than others, meaning that once you've unlocked the 1 great one there's no incentive to continue playing.

This is not a city builder, but a time and resource juggler. Food for workers actions, actions to manufacture. Trade items with visiting ships to keep them happy. I'm going to stop playing now as I wanted something slower and not a juggler, but it was a fun 8 hours and a good distraction. It's good if you like that sort of thing, but it is not a city builder.

As a Greek I just had to try this game. -Game performance is really good and the camera transition feels smooth. -Interface isn't too fancy but is informative and simplistic enough to provide a compelling experience. -Gameplay-wise the game is fairly simple, craft X trade for Y, keep upgrading. -I love the aesthetic/art and truly feels like a Knossos reconstruction. -Price is relatively okay, I feel like 9.99 would be more appropriate for a game like this, definitely get it on a sale. I hope that you will keep up the good work and provide more historical reconstructions, I really love your throne room implementation.